The present invention relates to user interfaces, and more particularly, to balancing performance and stability of web applications by conditionally refreshing a workarea user interface (UI).
In web UIs, there is a growing interest in using Page-Oriented Assembly. The term “page-oriented” implies that each task is encapsulated in its own browser page. Each of the pages share common elements, such as a common header. But launching a task involves at least one page load, as opposed to a more desirable Asynchronous JavaScript and eXtensible markup language (XML) load, referred to as an AJAX load, which utilizes a background channel or pathway with which to load pages and/or exchange information with a server. AJAX is used extensively within the page, but not to load the page. As an example, some enterprise and/or cloud management solutions, such as IBM's PureScale, may be page-oriented, and load tasks using repeated page loads. In contrast, some systems managers or storage managers, such as IBM's Storwize, may use a single, long-running page on which each task is loaded, such as via AJAX.
A page-oriented design best accommodates the extensibility of modern UIs. For example, IBM's Flex Systems Manager (FSM) console includes plugins from many different exploiters or contributors, which may be created by different organizations, on different schedules, using different development practices, and possibly with different levels of expertise.
A page-oriented design helps deal with these inequalities in several ways. One way is by keeping each task in a separate page, the tasks are isolated and prevented from destabilizing the framework. Each page refresh completely cleans up between tasks, avoiding memory leaks and performance degradation. In addition, by keeping each task in a separate page, componentization is enforced so that tasks do not become interdependent without using well-architected application programming interfaces (APIs). Also, the page-oriented UI is better suited to the browser paradigm, naturally supporting multiple browser windows and tabs, bookmarks, and history. All of this is possible in a single-page UI, but not as easy.
The downside of a page-oriented UI is performance. Each page must load very quickly, or a user will prefer a different product that does not reload pages, even if this product becomes unstable after a long session. Web applications achieve fast page loads by getting initial content displayed while other content for the page is still loading. Though modern UIs operate in this way, pages may be very rich in content, even when they are first presented. Initial views require JavaScript libraries, which may require three seconds to load and parse, even when loaded from a browser's cache. The goal of one-second page transitions (relied on as an important threshold for quick UI activity) is theoretically achievable with page-oriented design, but challenging and costly.
Accordingly, a design which provides fast page transitions and stability would be very beneficial.